Barnstable recall petition approved

HYANNIS — Town Council President Janet Joakim must decide whether to fight for her job or resign now that a push for a recall election is ready to move forward.

JAKE BERRY

HYANNIS — Town Council President Janet Joakim must decide whether to fight for her job or resign now that a push for a recall election is ready to move forward.

The Barnstable Town Clerk's office certified a petition yesterday to recall Joakim. The petition, the third submitted this summer, charges that Joakim abused her power with recent appointments to the town zoning board, leading to a mass resignation, and that she broke a promise to constituents when she voted not to adopt the split tax rate.

The petition's 293 signatures, all from Joakim's Precinct 6, exceeds the 10 percent of precinct voters required to call for a recall election, Town Clerk Linda Hutchenrider said yesterday. The precinct holds about 2,500 voters, she said.

Once the signatures are reviewed for a second time, Hutchenrider will submit them to the town council — likely next week. Then,, Joakim will have five days to decide whether to resign or go through the recall election.

"I'm considering all my options," Joakim wrote this week in an e-mail to the Times. "This has been physically and emotionally draining on me and my family."

Petition organizers submitted two similar recall petitions earlier this summer, but Hutchenrider denied both — the first because some signatures were declared invalid, and the second because the petition didn't meet the Supreme Court's criteria for a recall, she said.

"This is something we've been working on for a long time," Taryn Thoman, petition organizer and a Marstons Mills resident, said Monday. "We've put a lot of effort into it. ... This is something as a community we need to address."

Thoman does not live in Joakim's district.

If Joakim elects not to resign and to go through the recall process, town councilors will have to schedule the election within 45 to 60 days of when they received the recall paperwork, according to the town charter. They could add it to the ballot for the Nov. 4 presidential election, or they could hold a separate vote on a different day.

"It would be ideal if it could fall on the presidential election (date)," Hutchenrider said yesterday. "But we'll have to see what happens."